This invention relates to packaging and is more particularly concerned with improvements in the packaging of products having a general configuration corresponding to that of an electric light bulb.
Numerous packaging designs have been proposed for enclosing products which are relatively fragile, such as, electric light bulbs, in a wrapper, or carton, so as to enable the package to be handled with minimum risk of damage to the product. Because of the fragile nature of the product, the packaging material employed has most often been corrugated paperboard or a cushioning material of a type designed to reduce breakage of the glass bulb. While some designs have been developed which may employ conventional paperboard stock for the wrapper or carton, these have generally not proven acceptable because they do not afford sufficient protection against breakage or other damage to the product or because of problems arising in forming the package on mechanized equipment which is readily available, or convertible, for handling the wrapper material and the product.
It is a general object of the present invention to provide a package for light bulbs or similar products which may be formed by enclosing the product in a carton or wrapper of paperboard or similar foldable sheet material which is cut, scored and formed, with a minimum of adhesive, into a container for the product so as to provide satisfactory protection against breakage during normal handling of the package, and also to provide a neat and attractive package for marketing the product.
A more specific object of the invention is to provide a packaging arrangement for light bulbs, or similar articles, wherein a blank of paperboard, or similar foldable sheet material, is cut and scored for assembly into a container for a pair of the articles which are arranged in side-by-side relation and held in the encircling container in non-engaging relation by seating them at their opposite ends in apertured portions of the blank which are secured adjacent top and bottom walls of the container in inwardly spaced relation thereto and proportioned so as to provide the container formed by the encircling walls with a truncated cone shape in transverse section and with the sidewalls in planes which follow generally the contour of the articles and which are spaced from the confronting surfaces of the articles.
To this end the container and package which are disclosed and claimed herein comprises top and bottom wall members and connecting sidewall members which join the side edges of the top and bottom wall members, with sidewall members disposed in angularly related planes whereby a tubular container is formed with generally triangular cross sectional configuration and with article retaining means in the form of apertured panels hinged inwardly from the opposite end edges of the top and bottom wall members and secured in spaced relation to the same so as to form article holding and retaining structures having pockets in which the top and bottom ends of a pair of articles of generally bulbous shape are adapted to be seated.